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Great tastes that don’t taste great together

Blame my formative years in Italy, or time I spent from age 5 to 20 in France. Both countries have strong gastronomic legacies, and they’ve made their mark on my taste buds. As a result, there are certain things I just can’t abide.

For instance, if you put mayonnaise in guacamole, I will side-eye you forever. Taco Bell? I agree with my Mexican friends who call most of their offerings porquerias.

And pizzas are not pizzas if they have cream cheese and salmon on them. Sorry, Wolfgang Puck. I love your food, but I truly enjoyed that time you worked with pizza chefs in Naples, and they were utterly horrified by what you did to their life’s work.

But nothing Puck and Taco Bell do is as bad as some of the products or dishes I’ve spotted in the last few years:

2) Almond-flavored champagne: I came across that some time ago in Temecula, and it did nothing for me. What’s more, calling it Champagne is a sin in the EU, since the sparkling wine wasn’t made in the region. But the American wine industry takes delight in giving the finger to those snooty Frenchies.

3) Blueberry-flavored pasta: This was being touted by berry farmers in Vermont for a while. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to have caught on, though people are putting fresh blueberries in pasta salads. I can live with that.

4) Garlic ice cream: This comes from Gilroy, Calif., aka the garlic capital of the U.S. I’ve driven through this town, and you can smell the garlic even with the windows closed. I love garlic, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

I could go on, but I need to start making dinner soon.

All text copyrighted by A.K. Whitney, and cannot be used without permission.